Supermarket Chain Lidl Tipped to Launch UK SIM-Only 5G Mobile Plans
German supermarket giant Lidl (Schwarz Group) has reportedly announced plans to launch its own mobile (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) service in a number of other markets later this year, which could eventually reach up to 30 countries including the UK, US, France and Spain etc.
At present there’s no shortage of MVNO options in the UK market and so you might think that introducing another wouldn’t make much sense. But other supermarket and high street retail chains have had some success in leveraging their market position to make a larger dent in the market (e.g. ASDA, Tesco Mobile, iD Mobile [Currys] and Superdrug Mobile etc.). According to the FT (paywall), Lidl may soon join them.
However, Lidl has yet to confirm which countries are on its expansion list or precisely when they’ll follow or which mobile operator they’ll partner with (EE, O2 or VodafoneThree), although any announcement would come hot on the heels of Lidl GB announcing that it will be opening more than 50 new UK stores in the next 12 months as part of a £600m investment in its British infrastructure.
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Wasn’t expecting that, I’ll be interested to see how it goes. Think I’ve seen people on Lidl Connect (I think that’s what it’s called) in Germany and seems alright for their market, hopefully we won’t have to deal with the request on demand data stuff.
“hopefully we won’t have to deal with the request on demand data stuff.”
What does that mean, please? I have not heard that term before and a search didn’t throw up anything relevant.
It means you get unlimited data but after a certain amount, say 50 GB in a month, you have to manually activate it 1 GB at a time. Adds friction to stop overuse I guess.
I think the data on request idea is great- it stops those who abuse it (like using it for home internet), and brings down the cost for everyone else (because they’re not having to contribute to subsidise those abusing the system).
But equally if you need a large amount of data for any specific reason – it’s available without cost
@insertfloppydiskhere: I don’t understand the issue as MVNOs in UK routinely allow you to buy additional data if you exhaust your data allowance before your month ends. They might be called ‘Add‑ons’, ‘Bolt‑ons’, Top‑ups, ‘Auto‑boosts’. My secondary phone has a giffgaff SIM and I can get ‘data boosts’. So, LIDL’s mobile will have to do this as well.
In Germany they partner with Vodafone as a carrier.
Yeah, from a quick bit of research, it’s almost certain they’re going to use EE here though. All the MVNOs seem to be on EE these days
I’ll be interested in what their offerings will be like.
I think they going to use Vodafone!
I expect LIDL to launch much faster (within a few months rather than the expected 12–24 months) due to partner 1GLOBAL which does a whole bunch of things like negotiating wholesale deals, billing, getting regulatory approvals, etc. However a launch offering cheap deals isn’t enough: Tesco Mobile became huge not because of O2 but because of Clubcard, so LIDL will do something similar by having its PLus app integrated directly into its mobile service with deals like “Spend £100 in-store this month and get 2GB of data free”.
Within 24 months LIDL’s mobile might get 500,000 subscribers opting for cheap contracts and PAYG, and will likely become a mid-range MVNO like ASDA Mobile.
**Andrew** why shouldn’t people use a mobile network for home Internetif they pay for the sim and data along with a 5g modem-router?
I agree – some of us in rural (and not so rural) locations dont have much choice. For me its either a mobile SIM in a 4G router (120 Mb/s EE) or 8 Mb/s via landline at higher cost (no thanks!).
There is nothing wrong with that per se, but it does increase the cost for the other mobile unlimited users. On demand just means it’s a product for handset users instead of LTE/5G as a broadband replacement.
I wouldn’t go as far as to call it abuse, but there is a place for a product that excludes that use case
Simple buy a MOBILE BROADBAND plan, they’re designed for use in a router and should be used instead of a MOBILE PLAN which is for mobiles only.
Not rocket science, thus is why the networks suffer from congestion because people insist on using a mobile plan than using the proper mobile broadband plans.
Also you can buy data only Scancom plans for home broadband usage for all networks which are very good value.
There’s no difference between a ‘mobile plan’ and a ‘mobile broadband plan’. Same cell towers, same frequencies, same back haul. Not to mention that the load on the network is the same if you do the same task on a phone or on your laptop.
A special plan exists because they can charge you more for it… That’s it.
Lidl have partnered with 1Global in other markets so far. This means that their offering will be on EE in the UK and could launch as quickly as a couple of months as EE already have the capability and Lidl already have tested expertise to deliver their brand through Lidl Connect. Like-for-like pricing will be the key for me to jump over to them.